With measured step and anxious care,
The precincts pure of Portman Square;
While wit with elegance combined,
And polished manners there you'll find;
The taste correct and fertile mind:
Remember vigilance lurks near,
And silence with unnoticed sneer,
Who watches but to tell again
Your foibles with to-morrow's pen;
Till tittering malice smiles to see
Your wonder-grave Society.

IV.

Far from your busy crowded court,
Tranquillity makes her resort;

Where 'mid cold Staffa's columns rude,

Resides majestic solitude;

Or where in some sad Brachman's cell,
Meek innocence delights to dwell,
Weeping with unexperienced eye,
The death of a departed fly:

Or in Hetruria's heights sublime,
Where science self might fear to climb,
But that she seeks a smile from thee,
And woos thy praise, Society.

V.

Thence let me view the plains below,
From rough St. Julian's rugged brow;
Hear the loud torrents swift descending,
Or mark the beauteous rainbow bending,
Till Heaven regains its favorite hue,
Ether divine! celestial blue!
Then bosomed high in myrtle bower,
Viewed lettered Pisa's pendent tower;

The sea's wide scene, the port's loud throng,
Of rude and gentle, right and wrong;

A motley group which yet agree

To call themselves Society.

The residence of her old rival, Mrs. Montague.

We were speaking the other day of the famous epigram in Ausonius:

"Infelix Dido, nulli bene nupta marito,
Hoc moriente fugis, hoc fugiente peris."

Two lords, in vain, unlucky Dido tries,
One dead, she flies the land; one fled, she dies.*

"Pauvre Didon! on t'a réduite

De tes maris le triste sort;

L'un en mourant cause ta fuite,

L'autre en fuyant cause ta mort,"

is reckoned a beautiful version of this epigram.

There is, however, a very old passage in Davison, alluding to the same story: —

*To the same class of jeux d'esprit as this epitaph on Dido, belongs one made on Thynne, "Tom of Ten Thousand," after his assassination by Konigsmark, who wished to marry the widow, the heiress of the Percys. Thynne's marriage had not been consummated, and he was said to have promised marriage to a maid of honor whom he had seduced.

"Here lies Tom Thynne of Longleat Hall,

Who never would so have miscarried,
Had he married the woman he lay withal,
Or lay with the woman he married."

"O, most unhappy Dido!

Unlucky wife, and eke unhappy widow:
Unhappy in thy honest mate,

And in thy love unfortunate."

When Lady Bolingbroke led off the Crim. Con. Dance, about thirty-five years ago, the town made a famous bustle concerning her ladyship's name, Diana. She married Topham Beauclerc, and when her first husband died, some wag made these verses: — "Ah! lovely, luckless Lady Di,

So oddly linked to either spouse,
Who can your Gordian knot untie ?
Or who dissolve your double vows?

"And where will our amazement lead to,
When we survey your various life?
Whose living lord made you a widow,
Whose dead one leaves you still a wife.”

Can you endure

any more nonsense about Dido?

"Make me (says a college tutor) some verses on the gerunds di, do, dum, as a punishment for the strange grammatical fault I found in your last composition."

"Here they are, Sir”

When Dido's spouse to Dido would not come,

Then Dido wept in silence, and was Dido dumb.

Will it amuse you to read some of the unmerited praises I picked up in this charming society? When we all stood round the pianoeforte, and I felt encouraged to reply to Bertola's complimentary verses, which were certainly improvised; when he sung:

"Esser mi saran fatali

Cento rivali e cento;
Ma più che i miei rivali
La tua virtú pavento.

"Non in sen d' angliche mura

I tuoi be' lumi al dì se schiuse;
Tu nascesti, de un dio me lo giura,
Ove nacquero le Muse."

To which I replied:

Delicati al par che forti

Son li versi di Bertola;
Dolce suon che mi consola
Mentre lui cantando và ;

Ma tentando d' imitarli

S' io m' ingegno, oh, Dio! invano;
Dall' inusitata mano,

Il plettrino cascherà.

We were in a large company last night, where a beautiful woman of quality came in dressed according to the present taste, with a gauze head-dress, adjusted turban-wise, and a heron's feather; the neck wholly bare. Abate Bertola bid me look at

her, and, recollecting himself a moment, made this epigram improviso:

Volto e crin hai di Sultana,

Perchè mai mi vien disdetto,

Sodducente Mussulmana

Di gittarti il fazzoletto?

of which I can give no better imitation than the following:

While turbaned head and plumage high

A Sultaness proclaims my Cloe;

Thus tempted, though no Turk, I'll try

The handkerchief you scorn

to throw ye.

This is however a weak specimen of his powers, whose charming fables have so completely, in my mind, surpassed all that has ever been written in that way since La Fontaine. I am strongly tempted to give one little story, and translate it too:

Una lucertoletta
Diceva al cocodrillo,
Oh quanto mi diletta
Di veder finalmente
Un della mia famiglia
Si grande e si potente !
Ho fatto mille miglia
Per venirvi a vedere,

Mentre tra noi si serba

Di voi memoria viva;
Benche fuggiam tra l' erba
E il sassoso sentiero :
In sen però non langue
L'onor del prisco sangue.

L' anfibio rè dormiva
A questi complimenti,
Pur sugli ultimi accenti
Dal sonno se riscosse
E dimandò chi fosse ?
La parentela antica,
Il viaggio, la fatica,
Quella torno a dire,
Ed ei torne a dormire.
Lascia i grandi ed i potenti,
A sognar per parenti;

Puoi cortesi stimarli

Se dormon mentre parli.

Walking full many a weary mile,
The lizard met the crocodile,

And thus began: "How fat, how fair,
How finely guarded, sir, you are!
'Tis really charming thus to see
One's kindred in prosperity;
I've travelled far to find your coast,

But sure the labor was not lost,
For you must think we don't forget
Our loving cousin, now so great,
And though our humble habitations
Are such as suit our slender stations,

The honor of the lizard blood

Was never better understood."

Th' amphibious prince, who slept content,

Ne'er listening to her compliment,

At this expression raised his head,

And, "Pray who are you?" coolly said. The little creature now renewed

Her history of toils subdued,